Exorcism
by Firnheledien
Summary: Sanzo's POV during the events of Reload 2: Deathmatch


Exorcism

Disclaimer: Today, ownership still seems so far away.

Based on the events in Reload 2: Deathmatch. Sanzo's POV on his doppelganger: serious (possibly), bitterly humorous (definitely). One-shot.

For anyone who has ever observed him or herself in a mirror.

***

Sin

I have always prided myself on indulging in every vice known to Heaven, Hell and humanity. Every one, except: lust . . . and vanity. But now, I find myself guilty of one of the two.

Damn.

The vain fall to the vanities of vanity. I will not.

Violet eyes. Ruinous?--someone once said--or was it morosely independent? I never noticed how they managed to stun so exponentially, peeping out surreptitiously from under sooty curtains. Someone once told me that they saw nothing but demons lurking in there, but I see only gods--and annoying, shitty old hags. The flame of purpose and nothing more should light such eyes. Damnit, how I wish to reach out and gouge out those pretty eyes. Everything that I despise and also admire seethes in the pupils to a cataract of blind irrationality. I see both the child (what was his name?--Kouryuu?) running gleefully in them and the spitefully silent man crouched over a beer replacing that child. I hate them. I hate the desperate beauty that shines in thorn-fenced facets because it looks better on someone born into a life where they are appreciated. Most of all, I hate the determined despair inhabiting them and my fingers claw (jagged) and itch to stab them out and blind them from the light that it does not deserve. Because such is weakness: my hatred and the very things that infest the eyes and the soul.

My sight traces the blue veins running underneath the petal-white skin, pink rosiness budding at fingertips, lips and wrists. Strangely, the pale, high bones of the face have none of that to accompany the light turquoise veins raking the delicate flesh. I want to touch the youthful and not so youthful face, to feel the skin, which I know, is papery from the nicotine abuse. So well preserved in the harshness and mortality of the world. I suspect the cigarettes behave like the things they use to smoke ham and cure it. The black bodysuit curls possessively around his neat upper torso, who knew that such a body could be cultivated in a profession that demanded nothing of the body and everything of the mind and spirit? Then in this case, I am rotten in both.

The gun in levelled at the chakra on my forehead is cool and loaded with shot. The barrel is fortuitous in gifting death and even more in grafting life from those still alive. My hand, extending to the trigger, presses identically against another chakra-marked forehead, dusted with feathery blonde hair.

I even remotely liked the hair. A shining crown spun from sunlight that should have been shorn to befit a monk's office. I can see why the monkey thinks it's the sun fallen down from the stupid sky and come to rest on my scorched skull. But I didn't guess that years in a temple could have resulted better: innately stylish hair. It seems softly layered, progressing from the front to the back, cut and clipped and shorn by so many different hands (and occasionally, my own) into a cascade of golden fringe. I can see why I get pissed off--the damn hair keeps itself at a length where it can conveniently irritate sensitive eyes. I never noticed before, how it hardens the lines of a face, stoned into an expressionless coma ever since fortnights of rain and drink and smoke first entered my life.

Our postures are similar. Tightly leashed pandemonium balanced by the virtues of a temple childhood paint a picture of unusual aggression written in a passive stance. Feminine hands clenched tightly around the pistol: was I that much of a controversy and paradox?

I circle with myself prancing around. I still have that annoying childish gait which I thought I banished running from demons. Must be the straw sandals then.

Buckshot. Kicking up cement flakes where the bullet grazes the wounded floor.

I know exactly where I would shoot and exactly where I would dodge. I would choose to think that the bullets are not real because I am the original Genjo Sanzo and this doppelganger would not and _should_ not have real bullets. But after one hits the vase behind me (which promptly shatters) I choose to be convinced otherwise.

Whose bullet would find its mark first was the better self; the one that died would be the lesser. Which trajectory was written to be the bearer would be the killer, also. How could someone choose to shoot himself with all nonchalance and good cheer and still retain any dignity? Convenience would be to shut my eyes and pull the trigger. Would the pain felt be my pain, or his?--would the blood spilt be mine, or his?--but would it kill both of us . . . (make that me)? I was never one for suffering. Which was the weaker, deserved to be exorcised.

He could not be a ghost--I wasn't dead yet--then I conclude that he must be an uncanny mirror image of the self. It would be damn funny if I wasn't in the position of having my damn head ventilated, then I would be the first man on this accursed earth to be killed by himself. But permanent expiation of my spirit would still leave another me behind, and then in that case, I would not even have died at all.

Stupidity.

Ah, hell.

Shot.


End file.
